MO 



RANDALL, GEORGE M. 



value of the share*, and far below tho returns prom- 

 ised and received therefrom, may well be an offense 

 justifying impeachment, I do not doubt. 



Beyond that, since no action can be taken upon 

 any impeachment, it would be improper to express 

 any opinion aa to the facu established by the testi- 

 mony referred to the committee. Common justice 

 to a man just pausing out of the reach of possible 

 trial or acquittal forbids my here expressing an opin- 

 ion about his guilt when I decline, for want of time 

 for further investigation, to impeach him for mis- 

 statement and decline to impeach for corruption, be- 

 cause bis alleged offense was committed before his 

 term of office began, and it is now too late to try him 

 upon that impeachment. 



As to any guilt he must remain, as he is now, liable 

 to the ordinary tribunals of the country and the judg- 

 ment of the people. Their conclusion will be founded 

 upon their own views. Against their final judgment 

 we shall be alike powerless to save or to condemn. 

 But we can, by an impracticable impeachment, ad- 

 mitting of no possible trial, and which con therefore 

 add nothing to public condemnation or official puri- 

 ty, assert a power and establish a precedent which 

 may come in time to be destructive of the rights of 

 members, and thus dangerous to the liberties of the 

 people. CLARKSON N. POTTER. 



Mr. Goodrich : " As a member of the Com- 

 mittee on the Judiciary, not concurring in the 

 report, I desire that I may be permitted to 

 submit a brief statement of the reasons for my 

 dissent, such as I have had time to prepare. 

 I had no opportunity to submit tho remarks 

 to the committee, for the reason that I had not 

 time to prepare them before tho committee 

 adjourned." 

 To tk* HonorabU ffouM of Rtpratntalira : 



The undersigned member of the Committee on the 

 Judiciary that has had in charge the evidence taken 

 by tho so-called Poland committee in the Credit Mo- 

 bilier investigation, with instructions to inquire 

 whether any thing therein warrants articles of im- 

 peachment, or demands further investigation against 

 or with reference to any officer of the United States 

 not a member of this House, under the resolution of 

 the House of the 20th instant, and the report of which 

 thereon, by the majority of its members, has now 

 been submitted, asks leave, in consideration of the 

 importance of the subject involved, to express in this 

 manner his dissent from the views which it advo- 

 cates and adopts. 



First, and more especially, he desires to dissent 

 most emphatically from the principle it asserts that 

 an officer of the United States or a member of t his 

 House is not liable either to impeachment or expul- 

 sion for any offense whatever, committed prior to tho 

 commencement of his term of office, during which 

 the question of his impeachment or expulsion is 



raised. Such a doctrine may be sufficiently pro- 

 tective to the officer, but is it so with reference 

 to the more important interests of his constituency 

 that may be involved! And, under this Govern- 

 ment, it is to be borne in mind that offices are 

 created, primarily, not for the benefit of the office- 

 holders, but for the benefit of the constituency rep- 

 resented. 



Suppose (what, in the future at least, may not be 

 impossible to occur) a person should leek ai 

 tii in to this House or to the Senate of the United 

 States, and should obtain it through the u 

 and influence of some one or more of the wuali In- 

 corporations constantly asking for aid, by subsidies 

 or otherwise, through legislation by Congress, upon 

 the secret pledge of his vote and influence to pro- 

 mote the success of whatever measures such corpora- 

 tion or corporations might desire, can the right be 

 denied of impeuching or expelling such person the 

 moment he should take his seat under his purchased 

 election, to carry out the corrupt bargain on his 

 part to the detriment of the public interests, not- 

 withstanding the bribery in the cue actually took 

 place before even his election to offices ! Or, in such 

 cose, suppose the secret pledge should be success- 

 fully concealed during the member's first term of 

 office, and he should again be elected upon it, and 

 should enter upon his second term, again to perform 

 and carry out the corrupt agreement, and that then 

 for the first time the fact of the bribery should 

 come to light, can it be doubted that every considera- 

 tion would demand his immediate impeachment or 

 expulsion, the same as though the bribe hod been 

 received after, instead of before, his second term of 

 office began ? 



Upon this illustration, and without undertaking to 

 enter into a discussion of the question (as he has no 

 opportunity to do), the undersigned is free to assert 

 his full conviction that any and every offense may 

 be made the ground cither of impeachment or ex- 

 pulsion, even though committed before the officer's 

 term of office began, provided the offense be one cal- 

 culated to be continuing in its influence upon tho 

 member. The want of precedents for the exercise 

 of such a power is urged oy the majority of the oom- 

 mitteo in their report. 1 am by no means prepared 

 to say there are none; on the contrary, one lias lately 

 occurred in my own State in the late impeachment of 

 a judge of tin- Supreme Court in that State ; and 

 others, I feel quite confident, might be cited. But 

 were precedent* entirely wmitiiiir, under ill" broad 

 provisions of the Constitution applicable to this 

 case, I am, for one, prepared, in the interests of 

 good government, to make one and plant it broadly 

 in tlie history of the country for its purity and safety 

 in the future". 



I cannot concur in the report of the majority on 

 other grounds, which it is needless hero to ct forth, 

 as the ground already stated is so radically variant 

 as to render my concurrence in it wholly impossible. 



M. GOODRICH. 



RANDALL, Rt. Rev. GEOBOK MAXWELL, 

 D. D., MUsinnnry Bishop of the Protestant 

 Episcopal Diocese of Colorado, having juris- 

 diction also in Wyoming and New Mexico, 

 born in Warren, R. I., in 1810; died in Den- 

 ver, Col., September 28, 1873. He graduated 

 from Drown University in 1838, and was for 

 ome years a Unitarian clergyman. Having 

 connected hlmMl/with th> Episcopal Chun h, 

 he WM called to the pastorate of the Church 

 of the Acenion, in Fall River, and, subse- 



quently removing to Boston, became the rector 

 of the Church of the Messiah, where he re- 

 mained for :\ period of twenty-one years, ex- 

 erting a wide influence over the affairs of tlio 

 C'hnrch in that State. He was for some time 

 editor of the Christian Witneia, and was sev- 

 eral times chosen deputy to the General Con- 

 vention. In the years 1862 and 1805 he was 

 elected secretary of the House of Cleriral and 

 Lay Deputies. Several of the productions of 

 his pen have become extensively known. Tho 



